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BULLETIN NO. 10 ae - SEPTEMBER 1, 1916 


“Words without Derds 


Moral Creazon 


EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS. 
DELIVERED BY 
ELIHU ROOT 
In Carnegie Hall, New York City, 
February 15, 1916 


‘Reprinted by kind permission of Harvard University. Press 
from Addresses on International Subjects 
by Elihu Root 


Copies of this and other Bulletins may be had on application to the American. 
Rights League, N. Y. Branch, 45 Cedar Street, New York City 


_ UNIVERSITY OF Sa aa 
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Words without Deeds 


* K * * *K 


As to the policy of threatening words without deeds. 

When Germany gave notice of her purpose to sink merchant 
vessels on the high seas without safeguarding the lives of innocent 
passengers, our government replied on the tenth of February, 
one year ago, in the following words: 


“The Government of the United States * * * feels it 
to be its duty to call the attention of the Imperial German 
Government, with sincere respect and the most friendly sen- 
timents but very candidly and earnestly, to the very serious 
possibilities of the course of action apparently contemplated 
under that proclamation. 

“The Government of the United States views those pos- 
sibilities with such grave concern that it feels it to be its 
privilege, and indeed its duty in the circumstances, to request 
the Imperial German Government to consider before action is 
taken the critical situation in respect of the relations between 
this country and Germany which might arise were the Ger- 
man naval forces, in carrying out the policy foreshadowed 
in the Admiralty’s proclamation, to destroy any merchant 
vessel of the United States or cause the death of American 
citizens. 

“* * * Tf such a deplorable situation should arise, 
the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that 
the Government of the United States would be constrained 
to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict account- 
ability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any 
steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American 
lives; and property and to secure to American citizens the 
full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high 
seas.” 

By all the usages and traditions of diplomatic intercourse 
those words meant action. They informed Germany in unmis- 
takable terms that in attacking and sinking vessels of the United 
States and in destroying the lives of American citizens lawfully 
traveling upon merchant vessels of other countries, she would 
actiat-her peril. They pledged the power and courage of Amer- 
ica, with her hundred million people and her vast wealth, to the 
protection of her citizens, as during all her history through the 
days of her youth and weakness she had always protected them. 


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On the 28th of March, the passenger steamer Falaba was tor- 
pedoed by a German submarine, and an American citizen was 
killed, but nothing was done. On the 28th of April, the American 
vessel Cushing was attacked and crippled by a German zroplane. 
On the first of May, the American vessel Gulflight was torpedoed 
and sunk by a German submarine, and two or more Americans 
were killed, yet nothing was done. On the 7th of May, the 
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine, and 
more than one hundred Americans and eleven hundred other non- 
combatants were drowned. The very thing which our government 
had warned Germany she must not do, Germany did of set pur- 
pose and in the most contemptuous and shocking way. Then, 
when all America was stirred to the depths, our Government ad- 
dressed another note to Germany. It repeated its assertion of 
American rights, and renewed its bold declaration of purpose. It 
declared again that the American Government “must hold the 
Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for any 
infringement of those rights, intentional or incidental,’ and it 
declared that it would not “omit any word or any act necessary 
to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights 
of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their 
free exercise and enjoyment.” 

Still nothing was done, and a long and technical correspond- 
ence ensued ; haggling over petty questions of detail, every Ameri- 
can note growing less and less strong and peremptory, until the 
Arabic was torpedoed and sunk, and more American lives were 
destroyed, and still nothing was done; and the correspondence 
continued until the Allied defense against German submarine 
warfare made it unprofitable and led to its abandonment; and the 
correspondence is apparently approaching its end, without secur- 
ing even that partial protection for the future which might be 
found in an admission that the destruction of the Lusitania was 
forbidden by law. 

The later correspondence has been conducted by our State 
Department with dignity, but it has been futile. An admission of 
liability for damages has been secured, but the time for real pro- 
tection to American rights has long since passed. Our govern- 
ment undertook one year ago to prevent the destruction of Ameri- 
can life by submarine attack, and now that the attempt has failed 


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and our citizens are long since dead and the system of attack has 
fallen of its own weight, there is small advantage in discussing 
whether we shall or shall not have an admission that it was un- 
lawful to kill them.* 

The brave words with which we began the controversy had 
produced no effect, because they were read in the light of two 
extraordinary events. One was the report of the Austrian Am- 
bassador, Mr. Dumba, to his government, that when the Ameri- 
can note of February 10th was received, he asked the Secretary 
of State, Mr. Bryan, whether it meant business, and received an 
answer which satisfied him that it did not, but was intended for 
effect at home in America. 

The other event was the strange and unfortunate declaration 
of the President in a public speech in Philadelphia the fourth day 
after the sinking of the Lusitania that “a man may be too proud 
to fight.””’ Whatever the Austrian Ambassador was in fact told 
by the Secretary of State, the impression which he reported was 
supported by the events which followed. Whatever the Presi- 
dent did mean, his declaration, made in public at that solemn time, 
amid the horror and mourning of all our people over the murder 
of their brethren, was accepted the world over as presenting the 
attitude of the American government towards the protection of 
the life and liberty of American citizens in the exercise of their 
just rights, and throughout the world the: phrase “too proud to 
fight” became a by-word of derision and contempt for the Goy- 
ernment of the United States. 

Later, in another theatre of war—the Mediterranean—Aus- 
tria, and perhaps Turkey also, resumed the practice. The Ancona 
and then the Persia were destroyed, and more Americans were 
killed. Why should they not resume the practice? They had 
learned to believe that, no matter how shocked the American Gov- 
ernment might be, its resolution would expend itself in words. 
They had learned to believe that it was safe to kill Americans,— 
and the world believed with them. 

Measured and restrained expression, backed to the full by 
serious purpose, is strong and respected. Extreme and belligerent 
expression, unsupported by resolution, is weak and without ef- 
fect. No man should draw a pistol who dares not shoot. The 


* For events since delivery of this speech see p. 11. 


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government that shakes its fist first and its finger afterwards 
falls into contempt. Our diplomacy has lost its authority and 
influence because we have been brave in words and irresolute 
in action. Men may say that the words of our diplomatic 
notes were justified; men may say that our inaction was justi- 
fied; but no man can say that both our words and our inaction 
were wise and creditable. 


Moral Treason 


I have said that this government lost the moral forces of the 
world by not truly interpreting the spirit of the American de- 
mocracy. 


“AMERICANISM” 


The American democracy stands for something more than 
beef and cotton and grain and manufactures; stands for some- 
thing that cannot be measured by rates of exchange, and does 
not rise or fall with the balance of trade. 

The American people achieved liberty and schooled them- 
selves to the service of justice before they acquired wealth, and 
they value their country’s liberty and justice above all their pride 
of possessions. Beneath their comfortable optimism and apparent 
indifference they have a conception of their great republic as 
brave and strong and noble to hand down to their children the 
blessings of freedom and just and equal laws. 

They have embodied their principles of government in fixed 
‘rules of right conduct which they jealously preserve, and, with 
the instinct of individual freedom, they stand for a government 
of laws and not of men. They deem that the moral laws which 
formulate the duties of men toward each other are binding upon 
nations equally with individuals. 

Informed by their own experience, confirmed by their observa- 
tion of international life, they have come to see that the inde- 
pendence of nations, the liberty of their peoples, justice and hu- 
manity, cannot be maintained upon the good nature, the kindly 
feeling, of the strong towards the weak; that real independence, 
real liberty, cannot rest upon sufferance; that peace and liberty 
can be preserved only by the authority and observance of rules 


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aN 


of national conduct founded upon the principles of justice and 
humanity; only by the establishment of law. among nations, re- 
sponsive to the enlightened public opinion of mankind. 

To them liberty means not liberty for themselves alone, but 
for all who are oppressed. Justice means not justice for them- 
selves alone, but a shield for all who are weak against the aggres- 
sion of the strong. When their deeper natures are stirred they 
have a spiritual vision in which the spread and perfection of free 
self government shall rescue the humble who toil and endure, 
from the hideous wrongs inflicted upon them by ambition and lust 
for power, and they cherish in their heart of hearts an ideal of 
their country loyal to the mission of liberty for the lifting up of 
the oppressed and bringing in the rule of righteousness and peace. 


THE CRUSHING OF BELGIUM 


To this people, the invasion of Belgium brought a shock of 
amazement and horror. The people of Belgium were peaceful, 
industrious, law abiding, self-governing and free. They had no 
quarrel with anyone on earth. They were attacked by overwhelm- 
ing military power; their country was devastated by fire and 
sword; they were slain by tens of thousands; their independence 
was destroyed and their liberty was subjected to the rule of an in- 
vader, for no other cause than that they defended their admitted 
rights. 

There was no question of fact; there was not a plausible pre- 
tense of any other cause. The admitted rights of Belgium stood 
in the way of a mightier nation’s purpose; and Belgium was 
crushed. | 

When the true nature of these events was realized, the people 
of the United States did not hesitate in their feeling or in their 
judgment. Deepest sympathy with down-trodden Belgium and 
stern condemnation of the invader were practically universal. 
Wherever there was respect for law, it revolted against the wrong 
done to Belgium. Wherever there was true passion for liberty, 
it blazed out for Belgium. Wherever there was humanity, it 
mourned for Belgium. 

As the realization of the truth spread, it carried a vague feel- 
ing that not merely sentiment but loyalty to the eternal princi- 
ples of right was involved in the attitude of the American peo- 


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ple. And it was so; for if the nations were to be indifferent to 
this first great concrete case for a century of military power 
trampling under foot at will the independence, the liberty and 
the life of a peaceful and unoffending people in repudiation of 
the faith of treaties and the law of nations and of morality and 
of humanity—if the public opinion of the world was to remain 
silent upon that, neutral upon that, then all talk about peace 
and justice and international law and the rights of man, the 
progress of humanity and the spread of liberty, is idle patter 
—mere weak sentimentality; then opinion is powerless and 
brute force rules and will rule the world. If no difference is 
recognized between right and wrong, then there are no moral 
standards. There come times in the lives of nations as of men 
when to treat wrong as if it were right is treason to the right. 


OUR RIGHT AND DUTY TO PROTEST 


The American people were entitled not merely to feel but to 
speak concerning the wrong done to Belgium. It was not like in- 
terference in the internal affairs of Mexico or any other na- 
tion; for this was an international wrong. The law protecting 
Belgium which was violated was our law and the law of every 
other civilized country. For generations we had been urging 
on and helping in its development and establishment. 

We had spent our efforts and our money to that end. In legis- 
lative resolution and executive declaration and diplomatic corre- 
spondence and special treaties and international conferences and 
conventions we had played our part in conjunction with other 
civilized countries in making that law. We had bound ourselves 
by it; we had regulated our conduct by it; and we were entitled 
to have other nations observe it. 

That law was the protection of our peace and security. It was 
our safeguard against the necessity of maintaining great arma- 
ments and wasting our substance in continual readiness for war. 
Our interest in having it maintained as the law of nations was 
a substantial, valuable, permanent interest, just as real as your 
interest and mine in having maintained and enforced the laws 
against assault and robbery and arson which protect our personal 
safety and property. 

Moreover, that law was written into a solemn and formal con- 


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vention, signed and ratified by Germany and Belgium and France 
and the United States, in which those other countries agreed with 
us that the law should be observed. When Belgium was invaded 
that agreement was binding not only morally but strictly and tech- 
nically, because there was then no nation a party to the war which 
was not also a party to the convention. 

The invasion of Belgium was a breach of contract with us for 
the maintenance of a law of nations which was the protection of 
our peace, and the interest which sustained the contract justified 
an objection to its breach. There was no question here of interfer- 
ing in the quarrels of Europe. We had a right to be neutral and 
we were neutral as to the quarrel between Germany and France; 
but when, as an incident to the prosecution of that quarrel, Ger- 
many broke the law which we were entitled to have preserved, 
and which she had agreed with us to preserve, we were entitled to 
be heard in the assertion of our own national right. 

With the right to speak came responsibility, and with re- 
sponsibility came duty—duty of government towards all the 
peaceful men and women in America not to acquiesce in the 
destruction of the law which protected them; for if the world 
assents to this great and signal violation of the law of nations, 
then the law of nations no longer exists and we have no pro- 
tection save in subserviency or in force. 

And with the right to speak there came to this, the greatest of 
neutral nations, the greatest of free democracies another duty to 
the cause of liberty and justice for which America stands; duty 
to the ideals of America’s nobler nature; duty to the honor of 
her past and the hopes of her future; for this law was a bul- 
wark of peace and justice to the world; it was a barrier to the 
spread of war; it was a safeguard to the independence and lib- 
erty of all small, weak states. It makes the progress of civil- 
ization. If the world consents to its destruction the world 
turns backward towards savagery, and America’s assent would 
be America’s abandonment of the mission of democracy. 


YET WE ACQUIESCED 


Yet the American Government acquiesced in the treatment of 
Belgium and the destruction of the law of nations. Without one 
word of objection or dissent to the repudiation of law or the 


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breach of our treaty or the violation of justice and humanity in 
the treatment of Belgium, our government enjoined upon the 
people of the United States an undiscriminating and all-embrac- 
ing neutrality, and the President admonished the people that they 
must be neutral in all respects in act and word and thought and 
sentiment. 

We were to be not merely neutral as to the quarrels of Europe, 
but neutral as to the treatment of Belgium; neutral between right 
and wrong; neutral between justice and injustice; neutral between 
humanity and cruelty; neutral between liberty and oppression. 


AND APPROVED 

Our government did more than acquiesce ; for in the first Lusi- 
tania note, with the unspeakable horrors of the conquest of Bel- 
gium still fresh in our minds, on the very day after the report of 
the Bryce Commission on Belgian Atrocities, it wrote these words 

to the Government of Germany: 
“Recalling the humane and enlightened attitude hitherto 
assumed by the Imperial German Government in matters of 
- international right, and particularly with regard to the 
freedom of the seas, having learned to recognize the German 
views and the German influence in the field of international 
obligation as always engaged upon the side of justice and 

humanity,” etc., etc. 


And so the Government of the United States appeared as ap- 
proving the treatment of Belgium. It misrepresented the people 
of the United States in that acquiescence and apparent approval. 
It was not necessary that the United States should go to war 
in defense of the violated law. A single official expression by 
the Government of the United States, a single sentence deny- 
ing assent and recording disapproval of what Germany did in 
Belgium would have given tothe people of America that lead- 
ership to which they were entitled in their earnest groping for 
the light. It would have ranged behind American leadership 
the conscience and morality of the neutral world. It would 
have brought to American diplomacy the respect and strength 
of loyalty to a great cause. 

But it was not to be. The American Government failed to rise 
to the demands of the great occasion. Gone were the old love of 
justice, the old passion for liberty, the old sympathy with the op- 
pressed, the old ideals of an America helping the world towards 


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a better future; and there remained in the eyes of mankind only 
solicitude for trade and profit and prosperity and wealth. 


OUR VITAL ERROR 


The American Government could not really have approved 
the treatment of Belgium, but under a mistaken policy it shrank 
from speaking the truth. That vital error has carried into every 
effort of our diplomacy the weakness of a false position. Every 
note of remonstrance against interference with trade, or even 
against the destruction of life, has been projected against the back- 
ground of an abandonment of the principles for which America 
once stood, and has been weakened by the popular feeling among 
the peoples of Europe, whose hearts are lifted up by the impulses 
of patriotism and sacrifice, that America has become weak and 
sordid. 

Such policies as I have described are doubly dangerous in 

their effect upon foreign nations and in their effect at home. It is 
a matter of universal experience that a weak and apprehensive 
treatment of foreign affairs invites encroachments upon rights 
and leads to situations in which it is difficult to prevent war, while 
a firm and frank policy at the outset prevents difficult situations 
from arising and tends most strongly to preserve peace. On the 
other hand, if a government is to be strong in its diplomacy, its 
own people must be ranged in its support by leadership of opinion 
in a national cause worthy to awaken their patriotism and devo- 
tion. 7 | 
We have not been following the path of peace. We have 
been blindly stumbling along the road that, continued, will 
lead to inevitable war. Our diplomacy has dealt with symp- 
toms and ignored causes. The great decisive question upon 
which our peace depends, is the question whether the rule of 
action applied to Belgium is to be tolerated. If it is tolerated 
by the civilized world, this nation will have to fight for its life. 
There will be no escape. That is the critical peint of defense 
for the peace of America. 
When our government failed to tell the truth about Belgium, 
it lost the opportunity for leadership of the moral sense of the 
American people, and it lost the power which a knowledge of 
that leadership and a sympathetic response from the moral sense 
of the world would have given to our diplomacy. 


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Note :—Some six weeks after the delivery of this speech Ger- 
man submarine warfare was vigorously resumed, the steamers 
Englishman (Mar. 24), Sussex (Mar. 24), Manchester Engineer 

_(Mar. 27) and Eagle Point (Mar. 28) being among the victims. 

In its Note of April 20 regarding the Sussex our Government 
said: “Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately 
declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of sub- 
marine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, 
the Government of the United States can have no choice but to 
sever diplomatic relations altogether.” 

In response, the German Note of May 4 announced that sub- 
marine attack on merchant vessels without warning had now been 
forbidden, but added: “‘The German Government does not doubt 
that the Government of the United States will now demand and 
insist that the British Government shall forthwith observe the 
rules of international law universally recognized before the war. 
* * * * Should steps taken by the Government of the United 
States not attain the objects it (i.e. the German Government) de- 
sires—to have the laws of humanity followed by all belligerent na- 
tions, the German Government would then be facing a new situa- 
tion in which it must reserve to itself complete liberty of decision.” 

This means that when it is her good pleasure Germany will 
again take up her submarine barbarities, if indeed she has not 
already done so. On August 15 the Marquis of Crewe in- 
formed the House of Lords that since the date of this German 
promise four British and three neutral ships had been sunk 
without warning by submarines almost certainly German, 
while high probability of the same fate rested over the sinking 
of a number of others. 


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